Microsoft announce that Windows Server 2019 is now available in preview with general availability in the second half of 2018, along with System Center 2019. This release will be a Long Term Servicing Channel release and there will be a corresponding Semi Annual Channel release at the same time. Licensing will be the same as for Windows Server 2016 but with a likely increase in CAL pricing.
Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2G1rX8B.
Microsoft announce Dynamics 365 Business Central. This is essentially an ERP system for small and medium sized businesses giving them a single solution for managing finances, operations, sales and customer service. If you’re familiar with the on-premises solution Dynamics NAV, then this is full NAV functionality in the cloud, and if you’ve heard of Project “Tenerife” then this is that.
Dynamics 365 Business Central will be available from 2nd April, 2018 through the CSP program and for full users of the solution there will be an Essentials User SL for $70 per user per month and a Premium User SL for $100.
Find the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/2G7RVTE and refer to this Business Central page for pricing and demos etc: http://bit.ly/2FYT9ot.
Microsoft announce the preview of Azure SQL Database Managed Instance, a new deployment option in SQL Database that streamlines the migration of SQL Server workloads to a fully managed database service in Azure. Interesting from a licensing perspective is that you can use your SQL Server licences with SA to pay a reduced rate on a Managed Instance via the new Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server.
Managed Instances are available in 8, 16, or 24 core flavours and existing on-premises Core licenses with SA can be allocated to these instances to pay the aforementioned reduced rate. SQL Server Standard Core licences cover one virtual core, and SQL Server Enterprise Core licences cover four virtual cores.
So, let’s take a look at The Papaya Hire Company’s existing SQL Server licences to see what SQL Database Managed Instances they could license. They have 16 Standard licences and 8 Enterprise licences – all with SA of course. If we work out the number of virtual cores these licences will cover we get (16 x 1) + (8 x 4) = 48 virtual cores. This means they could choose 6 x 8-core instances, or 3 x 16-core instances, or 2 x 24-core instances, or any combination of those.
If you don’t fancy doing the calculations yourself then you can use the Azure Hybrid Benefit Savings Calculator to do the mathematical heavy lifting. Find that calculator here: http://bit.ly/2pB61XH and don’t forget the usual Azure Pricing Calculator which will allow you to compare pricing for Azure SQL Database Manged Instances with and without applying the Azure Hybrid Benefit: http://bit.ly/AzurePricingCalculator. The Microsoft announcement is also useful for an overview of the features and the licensing and you can find that here: http://bit.ly/2u9SQ4D. If you’re interested in the documentation around the Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server then refer to page 51 of the March 2018 Product Terms document.
Microsoft announce the General Availability of Azure Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to help organisations detect advanced attacks in a hybrid environment (http://bit.ly/2FQFCeC).
From a licensing perspective it’s available as a standalone User SL and is also added to EMS E5 User SLs.
Page 54 of the March 2018 Product Terms details Extended Use Rights for Azure ATP allowing organizations to install and use Advanced Threat Analytics to manage OSEs used by Azure ATP licensed users. There’s also an Azure ATP Add-on User SL available for users already licensed with an Advanced Threat Analytics CML (see page 88).
Azure Reserved Instances first became available in November 2017 as a cost-effective way to purchase base instance virtual machines.
If you’ve got a question or two as to how these work, then the FAQ at the bottom of this page (http://bit.ly/2fV95bC) is worth a read.
Dynamics 365 for Marketing public preview is now available. It will work together with Dynamics 365 for Sales and the video on the announcement page (http://bit.ly/2o4xLT1) gives a good overview of what customers will be able to do with this marketing automation solution. Organisations needing advanced capabilities to run global-scale marketing operations are still recommended to use Adobe Marketing Cloud.
If you’re an Authorized Education Partner then there’s a useful Microsoft 365 A1 FAQ document released in January 2018.
It gives you all the licensing facts around this new education offering: it’s a single licence for Office 365 A1, Windows 10 Pro Upgrade, and Intune for Education, and is a single payment of $30 per device, only available through CSP.
Find this FAQ amongst its Licensing Guide friends here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
We’ve just uploaded the latest (September 2017) Azure Stack Packaging and Pricing Datasheet to our Licensing Guides emporium (http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides). The changes are small: there’s a note added that organisations can try Azure Stack for free by downloading the Azure Stack Development Kit (ASDK), and there’s pricing included for Azure Standard Unmanaged Disks.
Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2018 was first available in November 2017, with Update 1 released on January 29th, 2018. The Visual Studio Licensing Guide (November 2017) is updated for VSTFS 2018 which now includes rights to SQL Server 2017 and is no longer available through the retail channel.
Pages 31/32 confirm that Visual Studio Express 2017 will be the last version of this product, replaced by Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio Community which are also free development products
Find this guide in our ever-growing collection of Licensing Guides here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
We’ve just updated our Licensing Guides Emporium with a SQL Server 2017 Licensing Guide. It’s got all the information you’d expect, and a useful section on licensing SQL Server in containers. Find it here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.